1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for controlling an electric or electro-hydraulic brake system of a vehicle such as an automobile with care for a battery forming an electric power source for the electric or electro-hydraulic brake system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Not only in an electric brake system of a vehicle in which a braking force is directly generated from an electric current supplied from a battery of the vehicle but also in an electro-hydraulic brake system of a vehicle recently developed in a high variety as described in, for example, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/263,226 by the same assignee as the present application, in which a pump is driven by a battery of the vehicle to provide a pressurized brake fluid source, so that wheel cylinders of wheels are selectively supplied with the pressurized brake fluid from the source under a control of solenoid-actuated on-off valves, it is essential that the battery is operating at its normal condition.
In Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication 7-17375, it is described that in a brake system in which a brake oil pressure is normally controlled by a solenoid control valve according to a duty ratio of a control current supplied from a battery, when a lowering of the output voltage of the battery is detected by a voltage sensor, the duty ratio control is stopped, while the control valve is maintained at a constant position.
It is not correctly checked if a battery is in a normally operating condition or not when no substantial load is imposed on the battery. Therefore, it is considered to check the battery during an operation of the brake system, such that, for example, the output voltage thereof is detected by a sensor when the brake pedal is depressed beyond a predetermined depth. However, those modern electro-hydraulic brake systems under the recent high variety developments are mostly adapted to execute various automatic behavior controls such as anti-spin controls, anti-driftout controls, anti-overroll controls, etc. depending upon separate applications of a controlled braking to each of the generally four wheels, and therefore, the operation of the brake system is an integration of a driver's braking intention and a control calculation of an automatic behavior controller constructed by an electronic computer. Therefore, in those modern electro-hydraulic brake systems it is very difficult to check the battery operating condition under its prescribed loading condition.
In view of such a difficulty, the present inventor has proposed in a co-pending application No. 09/440,587 filed Nov. 15, 1999 a device for controlling an electro-hydraulic brake system of a vehicle incorporating a particular system for correctly checking the operating condition of the battery of the vehicle.